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New initiatives to encourage UK/Singapore collaboration

Serious games funding aims to share markets and encourage spread of learning and training software

Two new initiatives have been founded to encourage development collaboration between the UK and Singapore in the serious games market.

Founded by the UK's Serious Games Institute and the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA), the two programs consist of a call for proposals on serious games, to be partially funded with £2.5 million in investment from the MDA, and the establishment of a Games Solution Centre in Singapore.

The proposal call will see mentoring in design and implementation from the SGI as well as the MDA funding, alongside opportunities to share markets for UK and Singapore developers. The deadline for submissions, which should aim to expand the remit of serious games beyond education to areas such as healthcare, is April 30, 2011.

The Games Solution Centre aims to make the expertise of the SGI available to Singaporean companies, with over 500 developers expected to benefit in mentoring across all stages of development over the next three years. SGI will also partner with Nanyang Technological University of Singapore to select five exceptional students to work on commercial projects.

"We are excited to partner with the Serious Games Institute of UK to grow the serious games sector in Singapore. We hope that Singapore companies will make use of the opportunities that we have created to strengthen their expertise in creating serious games and explore new areas to further grow their business," said Thomas Lim of the MDA.

"Through this partnership, we also hope to work with UK game companies to hub their activities in Singapore, and to use Singapore as a launch pad for their ambitions in the Asian market."